12/28/2010

Via The Blaze we get this high quality take down of the study allegedly showing that Fox Viewers are the most uninformed. I did my own fisking of it, here, but bluntly Lee Doren has completely outclassed me. There isn’t much I said that he didn’t, but there is a ton he said that I didn’t. Nice show:

Meanwhile in related news, the Washington Post is now “misinforming” readers the exact same way Fox has by explaining that Obamacare is increasing costs, but not increasing coverage by very much.

Update: By the way, liberals, isn’t the crass politicization of this kind of social “science”–where liberals put out bogus study after bogus study claiming that liberals are smart, normal, well educated and well-endowed, but conservatives are dumb, psychologically screwed up, ignorant and so on–fatally undermining your argument when you get to global warming? I mean you say, “The Science! tells us that there will be no more winters. And the Science! also says that you are an idiot. Don’t you dare question the Science!” It’s a dumb argument. First, there are plenty of conservatives who know they are not any of the things this supposed social science claims all or most conservatives are, so after hearing the science! lying to insult them, how receptive do you think they will be to the Science! on another topic? And second, you would tend to think the Science! might teach you that “listen to me, you moron!” is not the most persuasive argument even when it is true (and it obviously isn’t, here).

They (the Left) have still not been able to explain away the Pew study that found that (horrors) Rush’s listeners are actually as well, or better, edumacated and informed than the average NPR listener.
Ah, well, perhaps someday they’ll be able to explain to us how grass is not green, and the sky is not blue, and of course, nobody believes that water is wet.

And, speaking of NRP/PBS/CPB/etc, they’re taking a major hit today on that Ray Suarez tonguing of Fidel’s backside:
I would imagine their funding is getting more and more problematic.
In fact, the PBS outlet here in LaLaLand (KCET) has gone Indie, dropping their PBS affiliation over (allegedly) the amount of their annual dues to be paid to the Poohbahs in DC.

I rebutted it, rather successfully right here, demonstrating that Limbaugh’s audience can answer a “what is” question, but not a “why is” question. Heck, I even used a real-life example.

Sure, it’s an assertion you won’t choose to believe, because you are never going to read the Pew summary (let alone the study)…in fact, it’s the same thing I described: you know the headline, but you don’t know anything more than that.

It’s ironic that, as much contempt as I have for knee-jerk right-wingers, I could NEVER match the contempt for them that Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, and O’Reilly have toward their audience on any day of the week.

Its all about self-esteem. In liberal land, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

In conservative land, all the women are home, the men don’t have healthcare (and pay no taxes), and the children are all educated with 1985 textbooks due to the lack of taxes. On the other side of conservative land, where you guys aren’t allowed, the investment bankers, insurance CEO’s, defense contractors, and oil executives live in beautiful homes with a security guard at every corner, a BMW in every driveway (for the children, natch, since their parents’ Mercedes are in the garage), and the government “consulting” contracts are plentiful.

I tried to read timb’s comment but it must be that problem understanding again. It sounds irrational. It is a pretty well established fact that people who are interested in politics are better informed than those who pay little attention. That applies to both sides in politics.

One thing I notice from reading left wing blogs is that there are certain principles that mark the left from everyone else. One-they don’t believe in the free market, Two- global warming is indisputable. Three- The “rich” are evil. You can go on to third world countries being virtuous and the rest but those three will pretty much identify them.

Huh? That’s a Third World society. Most of the sociopolitical dynamics in such places often tilt to the left. The never-ending debacle that is Mexico is a much closer example. IOW, nations or communities where large numbers of people have voting patterns that pretty much mimic what’s found in eternally dysfunctional inner-city America.

What TIMB meant to say had his drugs kicked in:
“Its all about self-esteem. In liberal land, all the women are strong and play great golf, all the men are good looking because they decorate and dress well, and all the children are above average because there are no conservative kids to compete with.” It’s a perfect world in timbaland…

The Irony is that Fox News ranges from bad to awful. There is little in-depth coverage. There are few detailed, let’s get to the bottom of this, programs. Yet, it is still so far above the rest of the MSM garbage, that they stand out. ATTACK –

Since the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive Left defines “smart” as “agrees with everything we say or believe”, they naturally feel that they are smarter than Conservatives. That there might be other definitions that work somewhat better in the real world is something from which the instructors at their Liberal Arts Colleges very carefully shielded them.

Well since you insist I attack you Rupert, you are completely off base and Fox News really ranges from mediocre to awful. While it is true that most of the programing doesn’t surpass bad, occasionally they manage to reach the dizzying heights of mediocrity. While the rest of the news outlets are below Fox, they also upon more rare occasion manage to reach the level of mediocre. Fox News leaves it’s viewers poorly prepared to make informed decisions about the world they live in while the others leave their viewers woefully unprepared.

Also, while depth is a problem with the current media format, the greater and more prevalent problem is breadth – even when they get deeply into an issue they only present one side with (if you’re lucky with CBS) token acknowledgment that there is another side. In reality, as opposed to the world of the news, on any issue worth reporting there at least 3 groups for it for a variety of reasons not all of which overlap, at least 4 groups opposed for a variety of reasons not all of which overlap, and at least a dozen positions (cannot call them groups) which might be for or opposed depending on side issues which have nothing to do with the actual issue.

My first question to anyone who criticizes Fox News is, what news organization do you feel gives an objective report on current issues? Every news organization has made mistakes in their reporting. With the advent of the internet, it’s become a gotcha game of whack-a-hypocrite.
BTW, surveys and polls are not facts, and concensus is not science.

In liberal land, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

Well, not the Conservative ones…

S’funny, really. In TRW, the conservative women are good looking, the conservative men are strong, and, having actually been raised by attentive, caring parents, the conservative children really ARE above average.

But, how many knew that the originated under Condi? Well, no Limbaugh listener knew that from him. He set up the Hillary stuff and pretended the Condi stuff did not exist. He just assumed his audience is too stupid to know the whole story so he could set up his ridiculous conspiracy theory.

I know plenty of Limbaugh listeners from work and family reunions and they typically know nothing about what’s in a story beyond a headline and that’s because Rush isn’t about to tell them and they just don’t care to find out.

I would argue that this is more associated with typical human laziness than anything associated with Limbaugh listening and its root cause.

I believe I can readily reverse this and ask a large host of college educated liberals about:
a) Extraordinary Rendition (having to explain it to many, who likely know of the subject but not the term)
b) Project Echelon (interpreting it for them as International-Call Eavesdropping, because, again, they won’t know the term for the most part)
And ask them who initiated both concepts, and why…

Are you going to attempt to argue that “That EEEEvil BASTARD **Bush**!!” isn’t going to be the answer among liberals who imagine themselves to be well informed?

I’ll assume you’re actually clued in enough to grasp that BOTH were initiated under Clinton’s watch, despite his lacking 911 as a goad to take any kind of extraordinary measures.

S’Funny how what’s acceptable to the MSM (the ones “informing” the liberals, instead of Rush) changes with who is in office, as, suddenly, both those practices, being continued under Obama, are suddenly once again zero newsworthy.

In other words — the average person is probably less informed than they ought to be — because THE MEDIA plays this partisan shit all the time — both sides do it.

A rational, sensible person (hardly the majority of people any more, if it has ever been since about 1890) grasps this and does not depend on a monolithic source for news — and the MSMs ARE largely a monolithic source, as is Fox&News-Radio for the other side. Neither should be trusted alone.